An off-duty firefighter was struck by lightning outside a Major League Soccer stadium in Ohio on Saturday with the incident and bad weather causing officials to postpone a match between the Columbus Crew and Dallas.

The Crew did not immediately confirm details of the incident, instead releasing a statement that the match had been postponed due to the “extenuating circumstances” of an individual being injured “during the inclement weather”.

The Columbus Dispatch newspaper, however, named the man as Stu Tudor, 54, and reported that he is in a critical condition in hospital. They also included eye-witness accounts of the lightning strike near the stadium about 15 minutes before the scheduled kickoff at 8pm.

One fan said he was taking shelter from the storm in a portable toilet when he felt the strike. “All of a sudden it was just a bomb that went off,” Don Lewis told the newspaper. “I knew it was close. The electricity ran through me.”

Lewis added that he heard a bystander make a telephone call to emergency services stating that someone had been struck by lightning before he saw a man lying on the ground outside the toilet. The newspaper said the man was taken to hospital in critical condition.